Authorities are intrigued by tale that bodies were tucked below ones already in caskets

Wednesday, October 8, 2003

BY ROBERT RUDOLPH Star-Ledger Staff

The mob has long been known for its innovative as well as gruesome ways of concealing bodies. Murder victims have been cut up and stuffed in barrels, fed into wood chippers, buried under construction sites - even boiled, to prevent their identification.

But none of these techniques matches the one described by a Mafia turncoat, who said he heard stories that, decades ago, a New Jersey mob family created the concept of the "double-decker" burial, in which the body of a murder victim was placed in the same coffin as its legitimate occupant.

The informant said it was rumored that the technique was devised by a Union County funeral home operator during the days of Prohibition, when there were so many murders that the corpses began to pile up.

The allegation has sparked the interest of authorities in New Jersey, who said they plan to investigate.

"It's something that we will certainly look into," said Robert Buccino, chief of detectives for the Union County Prosecutor's Office and a former top mob buster for the state organized crime unit. He added, "I don't care if (the killings) were 20, 30 or 40 years ago, we're talking about murder."

The stories of double-decker coffins arose during testimony in federal court by Anthony Rotondo, a one-time capo in the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante crime family who has been steadily informing on his former friends and associates.

Rotondo related the tale during the trial of Girolamo "Jimmy" Palermo, 65, of Ortley Beach, which is under way in federal court in New York.

Palermo became acting boss of the DeCavalcante crime family in 1997 after the arrest of longtime boss John Riggi. He is accused of plotting the murder of the brother of John "Johnny Boy" D'Amato, who was killed because the mob was embarrassed that their boss turned out to be gay. Palermo allegedly feared that the brother would retaliate.

It was under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael McGovern that Rotondo related how old-timers in the mob had regaled him with tales of the grisly burial rites.

Rotondo, who said the scheme was hatched in the 1920s and '30s, said mobsters would simply place the body of the murder victim under the body of the person being legitimately buried, "thus disappearing forever."

The only hint, he said, came when the pallbearers began to lift a coffin that was supposed to be "carrying someone's 80-pound grandmother."

In seeking the conviction of Palermo, McGovern reminded jurors, "These were the men whose only contribution to American society was the invention of the double-decker coffin" - leaving a murder victim's loved ones never knowing the victim's resting place.

"It's total nonsense," said one of the operators of the funeral home mentioned by Rotondo. "It's too much," he added. "It's sickening."